Second Chances
by poeticgrace
Summary: Casey needs someone, and Evan is the someone she needs. ONE SHOT.


Casey Cartwright had never really believed in second chances until she was given one. After law school, after an amazing second chance in Washington, after her mother died, after Cappie, after everything, she was looking for some kind of redemption. She had always been the one to give it, but now, as she stared at the dark side of forever, she knew that she was in desperate need of some kind of healing. With her life in a disarray, she only had one place to turn.

There had been a time when her go-to move would have been to rely on Ashleigh, but she was no longer the most important person in her best friend's universe. She had been married to Rusty for three years now and even had a little girl who looked every bit like her mother but already seemed to have her father's intelligence at the ripe young age of eighteen months. They lived a few hours away so that Rusty could work on his doctorate. It felt like her baby brother was light years ahead of her, just like pretty much everyone else she had known back at Cyprus Rhodes.

It's that need that leads her on a journey across the country to a small law office in California. Nestled in a quaint neighborhood, she finds Evan's house seemingly on a whim, even if she had been planning the trip in her head for months. It was only when she had jumped into her car last night with his face in her head that she had decided to end up here. He looks completely surprised and yet not at all shocked when he opens the door. She smiles at him widely and flutters her big doe eyes before he ducks his head and lets her in.

She only manages to get five minutes into the conversation before she tells him everything. Evan had lost track of Casey after they had graduated from law school. They had managed to become best friends during those last two years of late-night study sessions, marathon cramming, endless mock trials and clerking during the summer months. However, when Evan had taken a job in Palo Alto, Casey had moved with Cappie to New York so that he could pursue some job opportunities he had heard about. Two years later, Casey had come home from a crappy job working as a law clerk to find her boyfriend in their bed with a cute little barista from the coffee shop they went to every Sunday.

He had probably thought that he was doing her a favor by giving her the apartment, but Casey's rent had become unmanageable early on and she'd went back to Ohio to stay with her parents while she tried to figure out the rest of her life. She managed to run into a few people she knew from college when she'd driven back for the weekend. There were still a few ZBZs around doing graduate schools, and Rebecca had called her when she had spent a few days at Cyprus Rhodes during Homecoming.

"I just can't figure out where I went wrong," Casey said finally, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. "It wasn't supposed to end up like this, Evan. I mean, I was the one who always had everything together. I knew what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. Where did all of that go? Where did I get wrong? I just feel like I got lost along the way."

"You did, Case," he admitted as he handed her a box of tissues. He was still in his suit from work, an expensive tie hanging loosely around his neck. "You even predicted it would happen. That's why you broke up with Cappie, remember? You wanted to become your own person, but when you let your life be all about him, you lost your chance to break out and become the Casey that you were meant to be. You never said as much, but I think that's why you were never fully open to giving me a second chance."

"Actually, Evan," she rolled her eyes, "that was more about the fact that you cheated on me with Rebecca. I kind of wasn't interested after that."

"Keep telling yourself that, Cartwright," he teased her. "Actually, if you were honest with yourself, I think we both know that you wanted to give me a second chance at some point. That's why you even agreed to be friends with me again. There wasn't any reason that we should stay in each others lives after that. We were broken up."

"Is that why we lost touch after law school?" she asked, looking down at her hands. It had been hard not having Evan's friendship. He was the only person besides her who truly got Cappie for all his complexities. "I could have really used you around these past few months, Evan. It's been so bad. I had no idea how lost I had gotten. I just kept thinking that I failed myself. I never thought that he would do that, not after everything we'd been through. How could I be so stupid?"

"You're crazy stubborn and incredibly frustrating. You're hard on people and even harder on yourself. You demand nothing but the best and set incredibly high expectations for everyone. You can't stand when things go your way and don't always handle change all that way," he told her. "You're many things, Case, but stupid is not one of them. You just let your heart lead the way and kind of closed your eyes to everything else. It happens to all of us. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. I honestly never thought Cappie would screw things up after he finally got you back. If you ask me, he's the stupid one here."

Casey softened at his kindness. "I've really missed you, Ev," she confessed softly. She reached out for his hand and let his fingers curl easily around hers. "This is the most like me I've felt in a long time. No one else understands this like you do. Everyone else just keeps giving me this rhetoric about how it will get better."

"I can tell you that it will probably do that too," he assured her. "But I don't think that's what you need right now." Evan squeezed her hand before letting it go. "What we need right now is a really cheesy movie that you insist qualifies as good and a pint of Chunky Monkey. That's still your favorite flavor, right?"

Cappie always thought her favorite was Chubby Hubby. The fact that Evan remembered her favorite was comforting and brought her back to junior year when they had bee the golden couple at Cyprus Rhodes. She'd have a bad day or get a poor grade or just need a little primping, and Evan would bring over a movie and some ice cream to help chase away the blues. Her face lit up when he returned with a pint of her favorite and a pair of spoons before pointing her in the direction of his DVD collection. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were bantering at a little New York bookstore within minutes.

"I love this movie."

"I remember," Evan mused. "Why else do you think I own it?"

"Yeah, that guy did get tired of you renting it, huh?" she giggled without looking away from the screen.

"It was worth it. It always did the trick."

"Always," she agreed as she looked over at him. "I don't want to go back to Ohio."

"You don't have to," he pointed out. "You could always hang out here for a few weeks while you figure out what you want to do. I could probably help you get some temp work at my firm, just filing and stuff while you make a plan. You can stay with me. I have a spare bedroom. It'd be nice to have a familiar face from home. I'm so busy that I don't really have time to make friends."

"I'll be your friend," Casey grinned.

"You were always my friend, Case, even when I didn't want to admit it."

"Aw, Evan!" she cries, dropping her spoon in the ice cream to throw her arms around him. She's not sure if it's the movie or the long journey or everything else in her life, but it's the best hug she's had in awhile. And as she pulls away and looks into those familiar blue eyes, she knows that this is what she came here for. It's strange to find yourself in someone else, but she had always known who she was when she was with Evan. She liked that version of herself, the brave and confident girl who'd fight like hell for anything and everything. "Thank you, Evan."

He knows that she means it as more than just a simple platitude of gratitude. Evan carefully brushes the blonde hair out of her face and catches a sick Meg Ryan in bed just over her shoulder. He thinks about kissing her but knows that will come later. For now, Casey needs a place to feel safe and she needs a friend. He is in the position to offer both of those to her, so instead, he opts for a chaste kiss to the forehead and pulls her to him on the sofa. When she wipes away tears at the end of the movie and tucks her ice cold feet under his legs, he knows that they will get there. He falls asleep holding her hand on the couch and wakes up with her head on his chest and his alarm blaring in the other room. It's small, this tiny little thing really, but it's exactly what they both need. It's their grown-up version of a second chance.


End file.
